Nimbostratus
by GlitteryRainbow
Summary: When Falthor, Dragonair prince of the Kingdom of Nimbus, eavesdrops on the wrong meeting, things go a bit awry.
1. Chapter 1

"What do you mean 'I'm not permitted entrance?!' I'm the prince of Nimbus!" The Dragonair's serpentine shape contorted in indignation.

"I'm sorry, your grace," said the large green dragon guarding the door with more than a small bite of sarcasm, "but only kings are permitted entrance. This is an important tactical meeting, and details can be trusted to nobody but them."

"And if I ordered you to permit me entrance?"

"King Rolf's orders supercede yours, _your grace,_ and he has given me orders that nobody but the kings and their top generals may be allowed in."

The prince spluttered about for a moment in an attempt to use wit to pry his way in, but he found every possible scenario that he could think of ending in either his arrest or in a shameful exit.

_Or both._

So he bid a frustrated "good day" to the guard and descended from the clouds. His lithe form twisted about gracefully despite his anger. In fact, that was his one strength; he channeled his anger into greater focus.

Unfortunately, that focus was about to take him directly into the jaws of trouble and he knew it.

_I shouldn't be thinking about doing this, and I really shouldn't be so determined to do it, but it has to happen._

Once he was sure that the guard had stopped watching his descent, the prince wheeled back around and slipped underneath the massive cloud castle in which his father was attending a tactics meeting. It was, by many standards, unimpressive; a simple cumulonimbus cloud was its main body, and given its nature as a cloud, it had no defining features. This served the Stratos Dragon Tribe perfectly well; all the Rayquazas slept while flying within the cloud, and it provided a disguise from the land dwellers below.

However, the prince was familiar enough with the castle to know roughly where the dragon lords would be having their strategy meeting.

What he wasn't familiar enough with, though, was how close to the bottom of the castle these meetings took place. It had been his intent to merely poke his head up through the floor and eavesdrop, but the young Dragonair unwittingly flew entirely into the room before he realized his error. He suddenly found himself twisting through the middle of the room in which the strategy meeting was being conducted. He was completely surrounded by the most influential and powerful dragon lords on the planet, and he had just popped through the floor into the middle of a top-secret assembly.

"Prince Falthor," his father's voice boomed through the heavy silence, "what is the meaning of this disturbance?"

Falthor flattened himself against the soft floor of the room and placed his nose against the floor in the traditional posture of submission.

"I apologize, your highness," said Falthor as he fought back tears of embarrassment. He could feel his skin burning in shame, and he knew that his underbelly was suffused with the heated red of a deep blush.

"What made you think that it was a good idea to intrude on this meeting?"

"I dared him to do it." The voice came from above, and Falthor felt one of the kings who was not his father bristle.

"Prince Devaar, what possessed you to do such a thing?!" The only Dragonite other than Falthor's father spoke to the Dragonair that lazily twisted down from the top of the meeting chamber.

"Seemed like fun." Falthor sensed that Devaar had only dipped his chin slightly in a show of flippancy. "Oh, sorry," he dipped his chin again.

"I mean 'it seemed like fun, _your highness._'"

The Rayquaza king, King Rolf XIII, chuckled. "Kings Da'mor and Vola, this is hardly a significant incident. They are young; this was to be expected." He looked to the amiable Garchomp on his right. "I don't know why we didn't officially prepare for this."

Rolf then turned his attention back to the two Dragonite kings. "Dismiss them; no harm has been done, and they will hardly be in any position to distribute our secrets."

The two kings swallowed their pride and glared at their sons, making it clear that this was not the last that would be said on the matter.

"Be gone; this meeting is no place for children."

Falthor pulled himself upright and bowed his head in acknowledgment of his father's command. Devaar merely snerked and dove through the floor. Falthor hurriedly left then flew off in pursuit of Devaar.

When he finally caught up to the much faster Dragonair, Falthor quailed slightly.

_What if he thinks I'm being childish?_ However, that thought is exactly what restored his resolve.

_I am not a child, and I will stop letting people treat me like one!_

"Excuse me, Prince Devaar."

Devaar snorted and turned his head to meet Falthor's insistent gaze.

"Yes?"

"Why did you lie for me?"

Devaar faced forward again. "Because you're cute."

Falthor felt a heavy blush rush through him and his flight faltered for a moment. Millions of thoughts rushed through his head at once; but instead of being meaningful, they merely served to make a white noise that prevented any rational thought. The chaotic fuzz effectively killed any chance that Falthor had of speaking a coherent sentence.

The other suddenly burst out in raucous laughter.

"No, I just thought it was too funny that you just burst into the room like that, and I felt bad for you."

_Oh,_ thought Falthor as the din in his mind suddenly clicked off, leaving a noisy silence in its wake.

There was enough coherence left in Falthor's brain to form a curt but courteous "thank you" as he changed his flight path to take him back to the cloud that had been set up for him, his mother, and his father. Falthor decided that he would willingly await his imminent scolding and be sure to set the record straight as to the reason for his popping in on the meeting.

_I won't have Devaar taking credit for my mistake._ He chuckled.

_But now I know; I just have to stay on the bottom edge._ Falthor resolved that the next day, the final day of strategy meetings, he would eavesdrop without being discovered.


	2. Chapter 2

"Prince Falthor, I demand an explanation for your conduct earlier today! How could you let yourself be pressured into something so potentially serious?" King Da'mor spoke in a genuinely concerned tone of voice, but Falthor merely rolled his eyes.

"Father, I wasn't pressured into it." He sighed at the king's expression of confusion. "Is it so hard to believe that I am capable of rebellion on my own?"

This gave the king pause, and it was clear from the expression on his face that he had genuinely not believed his son capable.

"Oh, Father. Why? I am nearing my Time of Flight. Doesn't Grandfather always say that this was your rebellious stage as well?"

"This is true," the Dragonite chuckled in his characteristic rumbling way. "I was quite rebellious, but I have obviously learned the errors of my ways."

"Oh no you haven't." Falthor's mother playfully bumped the king. "You're still that same lawless bandit that you were twenty years ago."

The two nuzzled, and Falthor couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy. The relationship that existed between his mother and father was, in many ways, perfect; the two were always capable of making each other laugh, and each still had that same glimmer in their eyes when looking at each other. While Falthor was also faintly sickened by their displays of affection toward each other, he still found himself wishing that he had what they did.

He decided then that enough was enough and cleared his throat loudly in order to interrupt the love-struck smooching that had begun. The king and queen sheepishly parted, then turned their attention back to Falthor.

"I know that King Rolf seems nice, and he let the two of you off easy," his father had dropped the professional tone and the anger had fallen away with it, "but he is known for being a highly volatile ruler. If the same thing happens again, he may not be so forgiving."

There was a certain look in his father's eyes that told Falthor that this was not an issue in which the king had no experience. But before Falthor could press him for details, the king tilted his head and grimaced.

"We'll have to continue this conversation later. Rolf is calling us up again." He turned to the queen and pulled on a pout. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

Falthor just groaned and turned to fly away.

"Good bye, my prince!" The king turned and flounced away, and Falthor tossed a parting remark behind him as he slipped into the section of the cloud that constituted his bedchamber. Falthor found it difficult to sleep in it, given that it was so drastically different from what he was accustomed to. He generally curled up around his favorite rock next to the spring he hatched in, and he missed it.

_I also miss solid ground._

Falthor decided that, rather than sleep, he was going to take another stab at eavesdropping.

_I know how to do it now, and I know that I need to be more careful and not plunge through the clouds like my life depends on it._

He pulled up beneath the main cloud in which the meeting was held last time. However, Falthor heard no sound. He tentatively pushed up into the cloud and found that the meeting room no longer existed.

After a careful pause, he heard the sound of kingly voices coming from somewhere above him and to the left, so he slowly wound his way through the wet puffiness of the cloud toward them.

He stopped abruptly when he heard a swishing sound next to him. He looked over and saw that it was Prince Devaar, who merely smirked and winked at Falthor before pressing on toward the voices. Falthor followed suit until the two were sidled up next to each other and could, more or less, see the meeting that was taking place.

King Rolf III, the mighty Rayquaza king, was delivering a powerful dissertation on the need to crush the Land Creatures once and for all. It was cliched from where Falthor stood; his father constantly received communiques from Rolf requesting that Da'mor pledge troops to the cause. Da'mor always tactfully declined, citing the peaceful relationship that existed between Nimbus and the surrounding Land Creatures. However, in recent times, attacks on the outermost borders of Nimbus by the Land Creature armies, calling themselves "The Earthmovers," had prompted Da'mor to finally accept and pledge troops, plunging the kingdom of Nimbus into war.

The speech then took a strange turn when Rolf fully untwisted himself and sat up, which seemed to be a silent signal for two Rayquaza guards to pop up next to him.

"I am very sad to have to do this, but the reason that we have not yet won this war is through the incompetence of the leaders. Namely, all of you." There were murmurs and rumblings of indignation, but Rolf silenced them with his next statement.

"For your failures, you all must be deposed from your thrones and I will take the reigns of your kingdoms. You have served, but now you must die."

All of the kings erupted into yelling except for Falthor and Devaar's fathers. The two kings of the neighboring kingdoms merely looked at each other and clasped hands in a gesture of farewell.

It was at that moment that Falthor noticed the other four Rayquaza who had made their way into the room. These ones were black, a change from the usual green that Falthor had seldom seen. The other kings had failed to notice them and were shouting at Rolf and backing away from him slowly. However, after a subtle nod of the head from Rolf, the four black Rayquaza lashed out at the nearest king to them with a ferocity that Falthor had never seen. A miraculous five kings fell dead, including Devaar's father Vola.

Falthor's father wheeled about and delivered a kick toward the black Rayquaza, but the thing moved to the side and struck out at his throat and Da'mor was felled.

As he went down, he seemed to look right at Falthor. For a brief moment, they made eye contact and Falthor knew that his father was well and truly dead.

In a blind state of grief, Falthor made to catch his father as he fell, but Devaar slammed into him with just enough force to bring him to his senses. Falthor knew that if he went into that room, he would also meet his death.

_I am the crown prince of Nimbus; I'm next in line for the throne. I have an obligation to the people to survive._

He and Devaar both were finally beginning to come out of the state of shock that they had been in, and they tacitly decided that they needed to get away and warn the rest of their families. But, as they were turning to flee back through the clouds, a loud voice caught their attention.  
"Stop! Stop or he dies!"

The voice belonged to the Garchomp king who had been seated at Rolf's right side. He had one of his claws pressed against Rolf's throat and was glaring down the four black Rayquaza who had by this point killed all the other dragon kings in the room.

They all seemed to be at a standoff until Rolf began laughing. It was a deep belly laugh laced with just enough of a crazy lilt to cause a knot of fear to form in Falthor's stomach.

_This can't be good._

"Where's the humor, Rolf?"

In lieu of a verbal answer, Rolf closed his eyes and sighed. The clouds around the two darkened and pulled in toward them. For a moment, they obscured the pair from view entirely, and Falthor looked over at Devaar in confusion. His gaze was met with equal puzzlement. However, Falthor's attention was drawn back when he heard a very distant scream from the Garchomp that seemed to be cut off before its proper conclusion.

Rolf emerged from the cloud alone and grinning in mad pleasure. The cloud lightened back to its innocent, puffy white as it receded, leaving the room pristine and free of the blood that Falthor felt should be coating it.

"Go kill their families, then escort the dukes to their new thrones."

Falthor gasped silently, then plunged down through the cloud.

_I've got to make it to Mother before they do. Maybe together, we can fight them off._

Devaar was following Falthor closely for a while until they exited through the floor of the cloud castle and flew off at top speed in separate directions.

Falthor thought for a moment, as he sped toward the cloud lodging in which his mother was, that he would get there before the black Rayquaza did. However, his hopes were dashed when he saw the thin sliver of black punch into the cloud. The subsequent scream told Falthor all that he needed to know; his mother was now dead or dying and there was nothing he could do.

He saw his mother's body drop from the cloud, plunging to the ground with wild abandon. Falthor raced to catch up with her, hoping against hope that she was still alive and was merely faking.

As he caught up with her, Falthor saw that his mother was still alive, but barely. She coughed weakly before looking Falthor in the eye. It was obvious that she hadn't much strength left, but she still reached out to stroke Falthor's wing gently.

Falthor immediately began to babble incoherent nonsense, but his mother put a hand up to his mouth.

Her last words before Falthor had to stop plummeting with her flipped his world entirely on end. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure that he had heard her correctly for a moment. But when he replayed them in his head, he knew that she had given him a task that he could not fail to complete. He mumbled the words to himself one last time before they finally sank in and he found himself streaking through the sky toward his home as fast as he could go.

"Your brother."


End file.
